


The coming of Ullr into Asgard

by Keenir



Series: Ullr's edda [1]
Category: Norse Mythology, Thor (Movies)
Genre: ...Norse myth-typical anyway, Asgardian history, Canon-Typical Violence, Canon-Typical imagery, Coda, Gen, Thor 2 trailer, Thor II trailer, Thor coda, flyting, the Einherjar - Freeform, Ásgarðr | Asgard (realm), Útgarðar | Utgard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-16
Updated: 2013-10-18
Packaged: 2017-12-28 03:03:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/986908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keenir/pseuds/Keenir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ullr, son of Sif, and how he seized his destiny.</p><p>...and Loki's repeated returns to Asgard during that same time.<br/>...and Sif getting almost philosophical...or calculating.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Return to Asgard

**Author's Note:**

> 'Odin All-Father was preparing a host of defenders for Asgard. [...]; they were of the race of mortal men, heroes chosen [...] Those who were chosen on the fields of the slain were called in Asgard the Einherjar.'  
> \--The Children Of Odin by Padraic Colum.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sif takes up residence in Utgard, where Ullr is born. She faces off with Thor, who wishes her to return to Asgard.
> 
> When there _is_ a return to Asgard, it is Frigga who fears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic has been a long time coming, as some could attest. I'm just glad I could finish piecing it together.

The world was called _Utgard_. Lost to and taken from the Frost Giants in a long-bygone war, it held little attraction for anyone beyond serving as a hunting camp for the foolhardy. This made it suitable for Sif, in no mood to be accompanied by anyone.

She had left Asgard within a week of Loki's falling from the Bifrost. Fandral and Volstagg had seen they could not persuade her to stay, so they had assured her they would cover for her absence.

Many of her days and nights now were full of the hunt, tracking the warm-fleshed scaled beasts and the thickly-furred grazers plowing an eternal path through the snows. Tracking, killing, and then preparing, eating, and storing the meats and organs of her kill. Carrying no more than what was vital, she left bundles of fur cloaks and fur blankets in each of her stopping points, making deliberate loops on her travels through Utgard.

Until they ceased to bother her, the nipping nibbling winds of chill and sparse snows were a welcome distraction to keep her mind from roaming afield.

But it was in the minutes of her own personal twilights between wake and rest, that her thoughts would intrude, remind, look at again. _Perhaps if I had told him,_ was one such. _Oh how Asgard would have feasted at the news of an heir having sired a grandchild for Odin. Would he have done all his recent deeds - the Destroyer, the Bifrost's breakage, falling away - if he had but heard from my lips that we would bear a child, the very thing that would have secured his place as surely as Thor's death nearly did._ But then, every time, just as sleep overtakes her, Sif knows, _But I did not._ And that would mark the end of that story: second-guessing was a thing of the back of her mind, not permitted near to her lips.

* * *

 There are other thoughts that she would prefer to set aside for another day, if she must address them at all. But then Sif routs the hesitancy from her mind and faces down the bothersome questions which have sprouted in her mind since before Utgard and after Asgard.

_I am loyal to Asgard, sworn to defend it. But how can one be loyal to a place one has turned their back on? Is this merely an intermission in my life, like so much outside the Einherjar?_

_And if Odin asks me to hand my child over to him?_ She could answer that of anyone else, even, she was sure, if it was Thor asking her. "Anyone else, I could and shall defy - but the Allfather?" and knew the question needed further thought. To move against the wishes of the Allfather, the heir of Bor and of Buri, king of all, the god who had hung himself, friend of Slepnir, father of Meili... _I can count on one hand, those who have defied Odin on some matter, and yet lived on._

* * *

Ullr is born in a branch-reinforced tent at the northernmost extent of her migratory loop. He comes into the world as the winds bear down and once more try to bury everything beneath a downpour of heavy snow. His first scream is louder than the howling winds just outside the tent and whipping for miles and more.

With hair as starless black as both his parents', Ullr's skin is as fair as his mother's, hands and feet as pale as his father's. His eyes, however, match those of neither Sif nor Loki; Ullr's eyes are as thick and rich as the horizon around a black hole, the color of knots.

* * *

For all that she considered herself a poor canidate for the duty of nursemaid, for all that this was the one field she harbored doubts as to her ability in this field, instinct was not the only thing which stayed Sif's hand. Oh she went through the motions - nursing and cleaning the infant Ullr, all of that. But "What do I do with you?" she found herself asking.

Instinct bade a mother turn over her babe to another if she felt inadequate to the task - Sif herself knew of a dozen bastards born to Freya and raised by others. Instinct was what turned a group against an indifferent parent.

But what trapped Sif was not instinct. It was indecision. A need to resolve questions and futures and reasons.

"I spent my formative years among the Einherjar," Sif knew; _and while they learned much from us, they still are not Asgardian._ Still, Ullr lived and Sif thought more. _If he lives, it must be for a reason. I may not have sentiment. I and he must have a cause, a reason, a purpose._

One purpose came to mind immediately: "You are born by royalty, my son," Sif said to him. "Continuity would have you in the palace of Gladsheim, awaiting your own inheritance and enthronement." _But you are the son of Loki Secondborn And Throneseizer, and ill will towards your father's deeds may land upon your strong shoulders._

"I swore loyalty to Asgard, and you are doubly Asgard - by blood and by inheritance." _Am I to become serving girl and nursemaid and private hunter to a prince, then? My mother loses, my father loses, and my aunts win after all, for I have given Gladsheim an heir. All of my accomplishments may well end out paling beside this one event beside me:_ "You." _Sif Princebearer. My hard work, all..._

"I could take you to the Einherjar. They could be the core of your family, as they were with me." _But they are only permitted to leave Asgard for pitched battle._

"We could make a residence somewhere else in the Realms." _But even my half-brother's silence only lasts so long. And with how many enemies I your mother have made, Ullr, Utgard will be the safest possible place. And we are here already._

"Or we could wander the worlds. Be nomads." _For how long? For all I have done with them, I am no Einherjar. I live too long._

"Our people live for thousands of years, and can endure for millions," Sif said to Ullr.

* * *

Sif knows exactly how much time has passed before Thor's arrival. Knows it by her son's age. Knows it by the movement of stars overhead. Knows it by the nearly-imperceptible Utgard seasons and how the native beasts react in the parts of the year.

"May I enter?" Thor asks at the door of her small cabin at the southernmost extent of a loop.

"You may," Sif says, knowing her obligations as host, knowing how they bind her twice over because Thor is at once comrade-in-arms (or once was) and lord.

Thor enters and takes a seat on the floor so thickly covered with furs everywhere. There is a fire in the traditional place for hearths, and he warms his hands over it. "Thank you, Sif, for your hospitality," he says, speaking what is never spoken - _Earth has affected me more than I have already thought,_ Thor mused; hospitality was a given - you remarked over its absence, you did not praise for its presence.

"Meal is some time away. I can offer you dried meats," Sif says.

He accepts a small serving of the dried meats, for that is what a guest does. "You appear well. Do my eyes deceive me?"

"I am well. Yourself?"

"I continue to miss the friends I made while under banishment," Thor said. "That aside, I am well."

Unable to hold it back any longer - _shameful_ in its way, given her training; yet _vital_ to an equal degree - "Who betrayed me?" Sif asks him; _Was it Heimdall or Odin who revealed where I lurk these days?_

"There was no betrayal, Sif," Thor says, his voice gentle and soothing, speaking the way he does to calm tempers inflamed by fighting. "We are concerned."

Ullr begins to cry, and Sif takes her son up to one breast so he might feed; giving greater priority to the feeding of her babe than to the eyes of Thor; others might show humility or seduction in the deed, depending upon their wishes towards the prince. _I am not the host I once was, nor the host I perhaps could have been. Perhaps I am still weary from labor and the hunts,_ reasoning that as part of why she had no care for how much of her a friend saw this day.

But Thor accepts this, taking no slight or umbrage, feeling no lure. "A fine child," Thor says.

"His name is Ullr," she says, her face daring him to ask who the father is.

And that is a bait Thor does not take. "Ullr is welcome in Asgard, Sif, as are you, whenever you wish to return."

"You presume I wish to return."

 _That_ sets Thor back, rocking his face like a hard slap, stunning him like a kick to his gut.

Sif can read Thor well after so many battles and adventures together - _You are asking yourself, Thor, how can I not wish to return to the Realm to which I had sworn my service and my life. You came here with the thought to bring me back so all may continue as it has for centuries before, that all I needed was some time alone to gather my thoughts._

_How can I answer you, Thor, prince of Asgard, when my own mind is yet a tumult?_

"Loki?" Thor asks.

 _The way you asked me that, tells me that Loki has not returned to Asgard._ "Are you asking after Ullr's parentage, or if your brother is the reason for my refusal?"

"Yes."

"My reasons are my own," is all Sif says. "Maybe the Allfather knows them already, as he knows all else; but I will not speak them."

"Sif, your friends are worried for you. _I_ worry for you."

Deliberately misinterpreting him, "As something other than my friend? As our race is monogamous, will not your Jane be jealous?" she cannot resist taunting him; lashing at him for his role in what she holds guilt in as well: Loki's falling away.

 _The snows have turned your mind,_ Thor thinks but does not say. _Or are you practicing your flyting arguments? I miss those verbal sparrings, my friend._ "As your friend, I am concerned."

"Don't be."

"Ullr deserves to be with others -"

"Halt your words where they are, Thor," Sif warns him. "How many children run in the halls of Gladsheim? In all of Asgard, then? How would my Ullr have more members of his age group there, than he does here?" _You and I and Loki were the abberation, three youths of nearly the same age; even the Warriors Three are our juniors._

"In the company of others, then," Thor says. _Loki taught me patience and how to wear down arguments, though I did not realize it in time to appreciate it._ "And if you have others to watch him, you can rest."

"I rest," she asserted honestly. "If you are in such a hurry to return to Asgard, then I give you leave to depart. I ask only that you not darken my doorway a second time."

"I will go as you have asked. I ask only that you be careful. Asgard cannot afford to lose two more of its children."

 _You all should have thought of that before. As should I._ "I accept your claim," is what she says.

Thor nods, hoping that that will be sufficient, that his old friend will return to Asgard and retake her rightful place.

But Sif knows him better than that, knows he will be back, given the chance. So, "Before you depart, Prince Thor, do you have the time for a brief flyting?" as Ullr is set back down and herself covered once more.

Thor grins. "Always, my friend," and gestures for her to begin.

"You," Sif says.

 _Very well._ "Thor is my brother whom I accompanied always. I reached to the heights, and had none to share it with."

 _You think to sting me with this? I have stung myself with it a dozen times already._ "You are Loki," Sif says. "Who am I who was lost to the storm my brother Thor left me in? What child of Odin lurks in doorways, fearing the world for the first time in all my life?"

Thor visibly winced, his own face letting his own shadows and demons show, however briefly. "You are Meili," he says. "I cannot forgive if I am never spoken to. I cannot say hello if none will come near me."

"Meili is your name," Sif said, _though there are others who fit the description. At least you recognize your fault._ "I spoke to mortals and was their prisoner, yet call myself son of the Terrible One."

"You are Thor," Thor said. "I see all, I see this flyting, I see stallions fighting and elk-maidens feeding their children. I see the tiniest of fishes and the vastest of birds, yet my eyes failed me when I needed them most."

Her eyes narrowed, "Heimdall," Sif said, and "I fought my brother and, when he needed me most, I let go."

Thor said nothing, thinking of that moment, and in time left.

* * *

Ullr grows. And does so quickly.

Watching him shriek with laughter as he tumbles in the snow, throwing it into the air and thinking to will it back down around him, Sif thinks back to the lessons she sat through with the Einherjar, and to those that the princes' tutor had not been able to shoo her away from (not that the royal boys had wanted their playmate to leave)... What stuck to her mind most was a chart which reduced the varying lengths of time each race spent in each portion of life, to a percentage, and then assumed all had a single common span of years to the total life. The point was to compare how who grew the slowest or aged the fasted.

Dwarves matured the fasted. Asgardians were only second best in that regard. Then Thor's humans.

 _And then there were the diseases, the plights, the curses, those which took a normal part of life or nature, and bent it backwards like a sapling being made into a bow,_ Sif thinks as Ullr comes up to her and asks for help building a shield wall. At two months and well weaned onto solid foods, Ullr is the height of a boy ten times his age. When he sleeps, Sif can hear his back breaking and knitting, the bones about as subtle as an army in full gear as they charge downhill.

It never occurs to her to blame Loki for this - plights are normal for her race who live for so long and so near the stars. And great variation occurs even those who are not true plights, like her half-brother Heimdall who - their mother confided to Sif once - assembled himself from nine afterbirths to become an infant unremarkable in appearance.

_And if Ullr's hands are a little chilly at times, it is not for nothing that Utgard has always been known as the furthest enclosure from one's hearth. Jotunheim was warmer than this; though we shall not leave. Not yet._

* * *

Maternal concern tended to war with maternal pride at times such as this, where Ullr practiced his skills at hiding and laying in ambush, always getting better each time he buried himself in the snows.

"Ahhhh!" Ullr roars, bursting out from an unsuspicious-looking snowbank, tackling Sif's leg; she lets herself fall rather than risk a broken leg from the bones being pushed in the wrong direction for those joints. "Did I win?" Ullr asks her, grabbing her hands to try to pull her back up almost before she's finished falling.

"You won that battle, yes," Sif tells him honestly, which elicits a broad smile that reminds her _almost_ entirely of Loki's. She suspects it may be wishful thinking, but thinks that in lieu of his father's mischievous streak, Ullr instead inherited her drive to compete and win.

_You won that battle, but how many battles and hardships lie ahead of you? How many of them will have a chance of your success, and how many will be as lopsided as pitting Mjolnir against a brick?_

And those questions spark an answer to what she had wondered before... _I am Sif. I am she who is War. When Freya held the position of War, she chose to be the passions which can bring about a war, the passions stirred during a war._ I _shall be the maternal side of war, the will to defend what is mine even if war be the cost, the will to be a living shield bristling in defense to keep war from those I care for. And I will keep even Odin Allfather at bay, though he is also War._

"Mommy?"

Setting her hands on Ullr's shoulders, "I will speak to Loki before all others," Sif vows, knowing that the Allfather heard her, as he hears all. "He will know before anyone else knows, that you, Ullr son of Sif, are his son, the son of Loki." _And if anyone else speaks to you of this, my son, I will have their tongue._

"Yes," Ullr says, and tickles her.

* * *

For Thor, it is a joyous moment when he sees Sif returned to Asgard, her hand holding that of young Ullr, travel-packs strapped upon the backs of them both.

His delight is dimmed somewhat by only finding that out when the peals of alarm sound throughout and around Gladsheim, the sound all are instructed to know is the call to arms against a returning enemy. Thor takes flight and lands on the Bifrost, just shy of where Bridge meets Observatory - for that is where stands Sif and Ullr.

"Sif," Thor says, "It is good to see you again," as the gathering army wonders why the alarm sounded for a returning Asgardian and an unknown child.

"You remember Ullr," she says.

"I do," Thor says. "Hello."

Ullr blinks and scrunches into himself, not liking the loomingness of the army.

Thor turns and personally leads the way back to the city, everyone else hurrying to keep ahead of him and keep out of his way.

And, far from the Observatory, the moment Ullr steps off the Bifrost and onto the ground, the grass for a few inches around each foot becomes gilded with frost.

"He's -" one of the guards exclaims.

"Have a care," Thor warns. "Laden your tongues with caution, or I will laden it with Mjolnir."

Everyone disperses, content that if the boy is any trouble, he will be dealt with by Thor personally.

Sif looks at him, and Thor sees a blend of defensiveness and caution on her face, not a mixture he has ever expected to see, particularly not on her face. She says nothing, however, and they continue walking past him and walk the path not to Gladsheim and the throne and eating halls, but the path out to the fields of standing stone.

He follows at a polite distance, curious what their first stop would be. And he notices that, each time Ullr lifts a foot, the frost evaporates away from there.

Sif stops in the middle of the field, and Ullr does likewise; ditto for when Sif bends both her knees before the stone marker which is memorial for ages-long-gone Forseti. "He had a plight which was the same as yours," Sif says, her voice hushed enough that only she, Ullr, and the Forseti stone may hear her; "which rushed all the stages of growth into a lifespan barely the length of a human's. Wise Forseti wasted no time nor energy, plowing as he did through all that existed of laws and traditions, committing it all to his memory; even the old, the ancient, and the sage would ask his opinion. Old Forseti gave a blessing to Buri, the first king of Odin's dynasty."

"When was he here?" Ullr asked, his free hand reaching towards the Forseti stone but not touching it.

"Long ago, Ullr my son. So long ago that Asgard was no city, and barely had a wall to its name." _It was only after Forseti's death that fear drove king Buri to begin work on the now-famous Wall, which drew near-eternal Slepnir to reside in Asgard._

"Cattle die, kindred die, you yourself die," Ullr said, reciting what Sif had sung to him as he was weaned: the verses of what every member in the Einherjar knew by heart.

"That's right," Sif said, kissing first the top of Ullr's head, then the flat of the memorial.

Turning his head to better look at her, to see into his mother's eyes, "I will die."

Sif nodded.

"But first, I will make myself a name that none can bring down. A name as strong as Forseti's own. They will remember me at least as long as they have remembered him."

She smiled. _I wonder which of us Ullr gets that sense of grand scale from, o lost Loki._ "I have every confidence in your success, my son," Sif said.

"Mother?"

"Yes?"

"Can we go home now?"

"Not yet," Sif says. "There are those who will want to see you. And they can be wrathful if displeased," standing the two of them up, and turning to face Gladsheim and the throne.

The journey to there was made more bearable by the passing-by of the Einherjar on one of their daily marches, of which Sif's body remembered every march she had ever been on. One of the senior officers stepped away from the group to kneel before Sif: one knee on the ground, the other lowered further than would be given to any mortal king or Asgardian soldier.

"Alfred Hrothgarson Grendelsmit," Sif said happily. "Good day to you."

"Pardons," Grendelsmit said humbly. "Many within the Einherjar have said how I resemble him, and now I hear from your authority that I do indeed bear strong likeness to my father."

Sif winced at the size of her error. _A danger to one degree or another in any of the Realms...but greatest in Asgard itself._ "May I hear your name, then, son of Alfred?"

"I am Aelfred Alfredson Grendelsmit, and I am honored to meet your grace, Sif Shieldbreaker."

 _Only the Einherjar does not call me Shield_ maiden _, and instead credit me with my accomplishments._ "Aelfred. This is my son, Ullr. One day perhaps, a shieldbearer alongside the Einherjar."

 _My grandchildren will see that day in pride,_ Aelfred knew. "We would all be joyful to serve in your son's company."

"In the meantime, it is my hope to return to the hallowed companionship I knew in your father's day," Sif said. _If I must stay in Asgard, as I suspect will be impressed upon me, then I will live once again with the Einherjar. Though perhaps his frost footfalls may alarm._

"This would please us all. May your days be full of many delights, Shieldbreaker; I must return to my troops now."

Sif nodded. "I wish you and your fellows all the prosperity they can bear," and Aelfred left.

"He was nice," Ullr said.

"His father was equally polite," Sif said. _As were his grandfathers and grandmothers, and theirs on back to the day when, not having been born to nobility, I could only become a warrior by first joining the Einherjar._

As they came closer still to Gladsheim, "Who are we going to see?" Ullr asked.

 _Your grandparents._ "The king and queen."

All the guards - Einherjar and Asgardian alike - step out of their way, though with wary looks at where Ullr steps, and soon enough, and all too soon, they are in the palace of Gladsheim. In the throne room. Coming to the foot of the royal stairs, where they stop, mother and son.

Odin Allfather looks at Frigga, and Sif knows that at least one of them saw her statement to Ullr in the snows of Utgard.

Frigga rises and coming down the stairs to crouch before him, Frigga said "Welcome Ullr son of Sif warrior of Asgard."

Ullr met her gaze, not knowing to be afraid.

Frigga beheld his future, that of all Asgard, and she stumbled back to sit on the steps.

"Frigga!" Odin said, on his feet in an instant.

"I am fine," Frigga said, standing before the guards or the Einherjar could express blades. "I fell faint. I suppose I did not foresee being so hungry so soon," said with a smile to allay concerns. To Sif and her boy, "I offer you both a place at table."

"We would accept," Sif said, and went with Frigga to the dining tables, Ullr never once letting go of his mother's hand. He sat beside his mother, who joined the Warrior Three at where they had always eaten. If the Allmother was startled that Sif and Ullr were not eating with her and Odin, she didn't comment on it.

"Hello there, little one," Volstagg said. "How are you?"

Barely a blink in response.

"This is Volstagg," Sif said, making an introduction. "He is a friend of mine." Next, Fandral and Hogun. Then...everyone else, as all of court and all others assembled for eating now wished an introduction to the first new face in a long time.

"And what would you wish to be when you mature?" Idunn asked him when it was her turn to pass by and be introduced, and Sif just wanted to _strangle_ her for using that tone in her question; but then, she and Idunn had never gotten along.

Ullr's answer had only one word: "King."

 _And_ oh _doesn't that set everyone in a tizzy,_ Sif thought as she watched everyone's reactions - from surprise to finding it adorable to concern - but that was not half the commotion that filled the hall as did seconds later, when Thor placed his hand upon Ullr's shoulder and said -

"Perhaps, one day," Thor said. And if his hand felt slightly chilly, he gave no sign of it, did not acknowledge it at all - contrary to what many believed their prince had just acknowledged: that Ullr was Thor's son.

* * *

Sif and Ullr were moved to live in Gladsheim within a day of that happening. _It does not matter what the opinion or rumor is,_ Sif knew, _It does not even matter if Thor is or is not Ullr's father. What matters is that Thor has placed my son under his protection. We have become Thor's dependents as surely as if I had married him._ She tries to picture Loki's face when he heard a rumor of her having married Thor, thinking the look of shock would make her smile, cheer her up...but finds she can only visualize a cold silence.

Ullr comes over from where he was playing on the floor - resolutely ignoring the towering desk that Odin had given him - and places something in Sif's hands. Something cold. Not exactly wet.

She looks down and sees an arrowhead made of ice, complete with a fastener to bind it to the arrow shaft, and all the blades are correct in their angles and placements and sharpness.

"I made this," Ullr confides in her.

"Its lovely," Sif says, and can't for the life of her ever remember saying that to anyone before. "Is it for me or for you?"

"For you," he says, smiling as if she's silly to ask.

"Do you want to stay here?" she asks him before he can return to the playing space on the floor.

"We can return to Utgard?"

"I fear not. It would be in this room, or we could live in the Einherjar barracks."

Ullr looks at her, blinks, then gives her a hug as he says "With you."

Sif lets her arms wrap protectively around her son. _How quickly has news of your footfalls spread across Asgard, my son? And to how many does that matter? And how many attribute it to my Vanir parents, my Vanir ancestors? They of Vanaheim whose bodies were bound closer to the elements of biota and weather and the elements, than most of Asgard._

 _And now much of Asgard is at war with itself in their hearts,_ Sif suspected. _They are unsure whether to fear Ullr's footfalls, or to coo over him and lavish him with gifts for being the first infant born in over a century on Asgard, outside of the Einherjar._

When it came to propagation of the species, few species in the Nine Realms and beyond could outdo the Asgardians when it came to taking a long time between birthings; animals tended to take anywhere from a month to several years, ten or twenty at the most. Be they Aesir or Vanir, Asgardians required an average of a century. And even with that slowing their expansion into the Realms, they had managed to establish colonies.

The age of expansion had come to an end in the reign of king Bor. There was nowhere else to settle, and when some settlements collapsed, that forced many to return to Asgard for want of anywhere else to live. Never a particularly prolific species, the Asgardians chose to slow their propagation yet further, to stave off the looming danger which would present itself.

A great deal of time had been bought thanks to Odin's war with Jotunheim. But even that only delayed the day when Asgard knew Forseti's words would come to pass: the hardest decision must be made - will our heirs chose lives or honor? had been asked and writ by Forseti.

* * *

"What troubles you?" Odin asked once they had retired for the evening to their bedchamber.

Frigga did not bother to deny it...she never tried to, not while married to a god who saw all the smallest of things. "Sifson's future," Frigga said.

"A good end?"

"Nothing so reassuring, my king."

"Do we have a quisling on our hands?" Odin asked. He had been tempted to send his sons to recover the Cube from that self-improved man on Midgard; but the boys had been in one of their quarrelling periods, leaving Odin uncertain how long they would remain united while afield - there was loyalty, true, but there were also different paths to the same end.

"Worse," Frigga said. "What I beheld was Ullr sitting in your throne."

"A successor," Odin said with pride.

"I sat beside him."

"His regent?" as that was entirely possible - he, Odin Allfather, had ruled under a regent himself once.

Frigga did not answer; much as she hoped that to be the case, she did not wish her Odin to encourage Ullr, only for a darker future to reveal itself, something worse than domininon by Frost Giants. "Do we have any of that wine Idunn sent us before your collapse?" she asked. "For there is another matter we might discuss, my dear husband."

"Meili still refuses to speak," Odin said.

Frigga bit her lip. "I cannot see Meili's future," _and would not wish to, ever. The only child I could ever give you, Meili can do nothing while in that self-imposed imprisonment._ "No, something else, my Odin..."


	2. Loki and the Einherjar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki returns. Twice.
> 
> Fearing, Frigga plots.
> 
> And Sif's relation to the Einherjar is explained.

* * *

Loki returns to Asgard as well in that same week, and like her he does not come alone. Thor comes with him, as does something Odin sweeps away to the Armory, giving Thor two words which tell him where to place Loki The Worldstriker: in the other Vault deep in Asgard.

Much as she wants to come sooner, Sif's feet refuse to carry her to see Loki before a full week has passed; by this point, she and Ullr have taken up residence in the barracks, sharing quarters with several other Einherjar warrior mothers; while Ullr learns of duty and song and how to find the balance of a spear. But now, here, at the entrance of the Vault, the Einherjar guards let her pass inside the structure; the Asgardian guards allow her past them to go deeper in.

In the hall of contained captives, everything is heavy - the walls are solid enough to crush fire and water, the very air is pregnant with threat. And there is no sound.

Footfalls are swallowed by the floor. Shadows are drunk up by the light. Prisoners have learned not to bother screaming themselves hoarse, as it is to no avail. Title means less than nothing here, as was learned by some of the captives who were once lords of Realms which no longer exist.

Loki's cage is more a container, the sort made for things which can bend nature and unnature alike to their will. As magicians were rarely captured, historically, this is the closest thing to what could best keep Loki within.

Even with the silence, even with the absence of shadows, even with all her ways and habits, Loki is looking up at her as she approaches. "Sif," he says. One word. A single noun carrying so very much upon itself. _Like the woman in question,_ he knows. _A word with broader and more capable shoulders than its spelling would suggest on any world._

"Loki," Sif replies in kind, weighting his name with relief at seeing him once more, disappointment that he had fallen so far so fast, sadness that there lay a barrier wall between them, gladness that he was not lost to death or eternity.

"You're looking well," he says, a phrase he picked up on Earth, compliment and probe alike.

"I am." _Now. Reasonably so. As much as I could be expected to be._

Asking of her what he asked of Thor, "Did you mourn?" curious if Thor's had simply been the official version for all to repeat.

"I wept for my own reasons, Loki," Sif said.

"I'm glad to hear it."

"Oh?"

"One would hate for you to weep on command." He tilted his head, slower than he used to, his body still recovering from all and everything. "What reason?" he asked.

Sif considered not answering him. She likewise considered dodging the question, or replying in the form of those riddles he so loved. "Pain." Perfectly honest, and a perfect nonanswer.

Loki barked a laugh, a short miserable sound unlike what used to erupt from his lips as he laughed. "I can scarce imagine the wound, then. To drive the stoic Sif to tears, that must take incredible damage and tenacity, as well as a suicidal preference which would bring a pause to any berserkr." _Even Meili would quail away._

"It was not a battlefield injury," she said.

Now his face was a mess of simple confusion, a question on his lips, another in his eyes.

As she weighed the best way to inform him of his option to see his child, Thor came charging into the room. As Thor brushed past her, Sif leaped back, her body and mind _reeling_ from the sheer force of the anger and hatred which was flowing off his body.

Slapping his hand against the relevant piece of the container, Thor was recognized, and an open doorway formed in it. Thor stepped inside, grabbed Loki, and carried him out one-handedly.

Sif stepped into his path, blocking his way; however fatal a decision it may be, she accepted that. 

"I ask you to move, Sif," Thor said, his voice deep as the storms mortals wove stories around.

"What is happening? Why do you not speak to -" and hesitated, not knowing how to address him - as 'Loki', as 'your brother', as 'my child's father', or as something else.

Thor's answer made no sense to her - she could pick out something which sounded like "Malek"...but the remainder was unfamiliar. _I know the military history of all Asgard and her protectorates and dependencies, and a good deal of the other Realms who do not qualify as such. And yet..._ "Now, as I have answered you, I tell you to step aside."

"And should I refuse, prince Thor?"

"I should not like that," was how he cryptically answered.

"I suppose I don't get a say," Loki said dryly.

"You are _needed_ ," Thor said. "Were not your skills _vital_ , I would not have let you from your bowl so soon - three days at least, for you, as it was for me."

 _Your bowl was a planet,_ Loki thinks but does not say. He keeps his silence, letting it dangle more than tauntingly while less than mockingly.

In no mood for this, not now, "You will come, or we will find a deeper hole for you," Thor said, laying out the options.

Loki closed his eyes.

"Well?"

Opening one eye open a crack in a passable impression of the Allfather dangling from a tree, Loki said "I'm thinking."

**~~~~~~~~~**

* * *

In the olden days, Sif knows she would have gone with Thor and Loki straight to the battlefield. But War knows her obligations are not to her princes alone.

But when she reaches the barracks, her tongue sharpens at the sight of so many Einherjar standing outdoors, more milling about than doing something productive. _And there are few enough reasons for that to be so._ Sif glides through their number, they being smart and keeping as much out of her path as possible, and then she is inside and heading down the corridor to the suite she shares -

And sees the Allfather standing there, saying something quietly with Ullr, a conversation Sif's ears cannot pick up. But Odin falls silent before Sif can say anything, and he turns to face her, blind eye first.

"Keep - away - from - my - son!" is all she can think to say.

Odin takes a step to one side, and Sif seizes the opportunity to rush forward and take Ullr into her arms and take a step away from her king. "You are as good a mother as you are a warrior, Sif," Odin says. "Never forget that. I have not."

"Leave my son alone. He is not for you," Sif says, feeling like the fated-to-doom protagonist in those old Vanir tragicomedies, _the fool spitting against an avalanche, kicking pebbles to stave off a landslide._

Odin's lip twitches, as though there's a part of him that finds this just a teensy bit amusing - or comforting - or intriging...though he does not give further hint as to which it is.

Instead, Odin gives her a patient look, grants her a nod, and walks past to the door.

Feeling more like she is seeing a feint rather than a true surrender - _neither was to be expected_ \- Sif asks after him, "You are leaving?" _That easily?_

"I beheld your approach before you ever left the prison," Odin said, "and readied myself, for Thor and Loki are not the only ones going into battle."

"I will go as well," Sif states.

"And of Ullr? With whom shall he be?"

"The Einherjar have been raising children for centuries, Allfather; part of the task you set them at their founding." _That and to be ready for when war reaches Asgard._ "My nerves and muscles have not withered on Utgard, I can fight well."

"Then do so," Odin says, leaving Sif with the feeling that this was the aim...or one aim.

**~~~~~~~~~**

* * *

On Earth, human children would be taken on guided tours of famous residences and museums. On Asgard, the two were one and the same. On a visit through Gladsheim with others of their wide age-set, Ullr and his good friend Anhild came across a strange lumping of shadows all bound together like thrown cloths where the light should not have cast shadows; the shadows had a heavy breathing like slumber that was awakening to wakeful silence.

"Children," the shadows said.

"In deed," Anhild said. _If we were allowed to fight on this day, this week, I would have carved my name into the annals of valiant warriors,_ she was certain; she would not have been the youngest to take up arms in defense of Asgard's people.

"Who is there?" Ullr asked the shadows.

Anhild and Ullr were answered with "I have name and title and deed and heiti and kenning, nothing more, nevermore."

"You are a berserkr," Anhild said, beating Ullr to it.

"Yes," but still not showing a form. "I am silent and watching. I am patient and keeping my own counsel. I have every reason and no thing." _Thor my brother turned me into this._

Anhild looked to Ullr, who said "I know that as well as you know what is in my pocket."

Silence, then a long slow chuckle from the shadows. "Were you mine, Loki would be your uncle. Thor is your uncle."

"You aren't Thor," Ullr said.

Anhild asked, "Are you the great Meili, the living sacrifice?"

"I have been called thus, yes," and took a step out of the shade. Vastly broad shoulders were struck by the light like great mountains. A fallen tree still mighty, how like the size of the head tipped by silent black nostrils.

Remembering his classes, Ullr knew that berserkrs favored the sign of the bear, that it and it alone was what they invoked for protection, that they would see themselves as frenzied bears as they charged into battle. _Meili is a bear. Bigger than our classes say they grow._

"Sif's heirs," Meili said, feeling the power these two put out. "One by blood and skill; the other in learning and intent, like Sif or Cartimandua." _I smell great adventures on you both, conflicts you will raise up and unleash. A good reason._ "What shall we do, we three?" Meili asked.

*****

For the Einherjar, the possibility of miracles and past heroes walking among your number, that was something which could occur on any day. Thus the sight of Ullr Sifson and Anhild Boudiccadottir Fafnirwrath walking from the palace to the barracks on either side of mighty Meili, though novel in their mortal memories, was not an event outside the realm of expectations.

For the Asgardians, the sight of Meili was a chilling one. Some thought of prophecies cast aside as improbable ages ago; others feared what other unlikely deeds that Sif's boy would accomplish in time.

For Frigga, this was confirmation of her fear, and a harbinger of what was to come. _Either I shall be Ullr's prisoner, his hostage, or his regent. None of those options gladdens me. Thus I must plan carefully, for I will only have one opportunity to silence the danger._

**~~~~~~~~~**

* * *

Sif and Thor and the Warriors Three returned with a great many of Asgard's warriors after the battle came to an end and that dark creature was defeated with all neccessary finality. Sif was reunited with Ullr and learned of his achievements she had missed during the time which had elapsed during the battle - learning letters and runes and bygone symbols, making arches of ice to amuse his fellow children as a thing to play under.

Loki did not return for another three months, and when he did, it was to drop three feet to the ground in front of the Einherjar barracks when Sif was nearby and singing with Aelfred and the others in the regiment. Everyone fell silent, looking at Loki; which left it to Sif to go over and look down at him.

"Watch the first step," Loki muttered, quoting who-knows-who. Rolling onto his back, he looked up at Sif and smiled. "Did you mourn?"

"None have ever been able to kill you, Loki," Sif reminded him. "It would be premature to mourn."

"Yes, an excellent point. Next time, I'll leave a body."

"Next time, it may be I who kills you."

"I should be so fortunate."

Sif snorted.

Loki frowned, seeing the silenced singers to one side. "Since when did you prefer to have an audience?" he asked her. "Yes yes, I recognize the Einherjar, before you ask. Even Hod would know them."

"Then why did you come back?" Sif asked Loki.

"We must talk."

"We are already talking."

Loki's answer made little sense to her, as it seemed he was calling her _a very Stark...something._ "I have undertaken a great deal, Sif, and while I would care for nothing more than the pleasure of your company - with or without the regimental company - I fear I require food and tending-to... Or at least drink and something flesh-numbing."

Sif pulled out her stamp, the instant signature which was affixed to many short-order agreements drawn up, and handed it to Aelfred. "See this reaches Eir so she sends down her best physicians. And bring some platters of food from the hall - we're all hungry, are we not?" she asked that last part to all the Einherjar, who nodded agreement. Aelfred ran off to do his duty.

 _Stark assumes that, as a god I would be a poor ruler for his world,_ Loki mused; _yet Odin is not my only role model in these things - more I would have been following the example of Sif with her Einherjar, and she is what Stark's vernacular would call 'a patron saint.' Though to be so generous to my subjects, I must first rule them...unlike Sif's relation to these people._

**~~~~~~~~~**

* * *

"You wished to see me, Allmother?" Hod asks, standing at the foot of the stairs to the throne.

Odin had just departed to see to something pertaining to Ullr, Frigga knew; _and now, so must I, in my own way._ "My thanks, lord Hod, for this," Frigga said, sitting in her throne. "I have a task for you to complete, a danger which must not come to threaten Asgard."

Hod, the blind god, the god of unseen things, said, "A name, my queen, and I will have it removed."

"You long were friends with Sif. I would know if this poses a problem or a conflict for you."

That narrowed the list in Hod's mind. "Sif's loyalty is to Asgard, so sworn. My loyalty is to Odin and Frigga."

"Ullr," Frigga said, naming the quarry for Hod.

Hod bowed, then knelt. "Thy will be done," he assured her.

**~~~~~~~~~**

* * *

Sif is looking in her mirror, closing first one eye, then the other, all but glaring at her eyelids; at this time of the year, they refuse to be changed to any other hue or shade, no matter how much blood flows to the various parts of the skin. _This ever has been a good thing, though I would prefer they be like that year-round. Loki always appreciates their contrariness._ Also she thinks _It is a meal - why do I worry so over lid color? Have he and Thor been on Midgard so oft that I am thinking - on some level - that it would be good and meet for me to emulate the Midgarders?_ and didn't pursue that line of thought.

"I can watch him for you," Odin said, standing in her doorway.

"Which 'him'?" Sif asked. _Wherein the Allfather is concerned, best to never assume what he means._

"Ullr. While you and Loki are dining this evening. I will watch him for you."

Sif smiled as she stood and walked up to just shy of Odin - close enough that he could kill her with one hand, if he so chose. "Very well, my king. I grant you permission to watch Ullr on this day and night - you do anyway."

Odin smiled at the recognition, for _not everyone recalls that when they treat with me._

But she wasn't done yet: "You may stay if you wish in the Einherjar barracks and watch Ullr, for that is where and with whom he will be in my absence. You may not speak to my son, make gestures or magic to him, nor make quail the knees of the Einherjar while my son is under their watch."

"And if they are needed on the battlefield?"

"A battlefield without the Allfather would be a shoddy thing indeed," Sif remarked.

"Oh indeed," he agreed. "Should a battle arise, I will see Ullr handed to Eir - surely the highest medical doctor in Asgard is sufficient."

"I agree," Sif said, and still had the feeling that she had missed a trick somewhere, that Odin had left a loophole where his grandson was concerned.

**~~~~~~~~~**

* * *

Dinner fares well, and is eaten mostly in silence between them. _Silence is better than absence,_ each knows, each for their own reasons.

"Thor relented his grip and relaxed when we reached the battlefield," Loki tells her; "he let my feet touch the ground," which draws a smile from her - the aim of that truth. "He then explained who we were facing and what he needed of me, why my skills were relevant to the battlefield he had brought me to. So I fought alongside him."

She knows what a minefield the subject can be, but feels it need be addressed. "And how was it? A return to the way you used to fight as a unit?" as she had fought in a different unit, alongside Hod and others, even the wizened Dwarven mercenary Gandalf long in Asgard's service.

"It approached that in some moments," Loki allows. "Still, quite jarring to not see _you_ on a battlefield." _Jarring, and occurring with increasing frequency... notably Midgard, New York, those theaters of the war on that red-faced demon._

"I have been required elsewhere," Sif said.

"Ah," Loki says, and leaves it at that.

"You have been missed, Loki."

 _Had a human said that to me, I would tell her to improve her aim._ "Missed, but not searched for. The distinction exists."

"As I said, I have been required elsewhere."

"Ah," Loki says. Then, in an act of mercy, "Thor was full of praise for a youth by the name of Ullr," Loki said. "And he insisted I make the lad's acquaintance."

"You would like him, I think."

"I have no doubt. You know him?"

"He and a human friend of his have persuaded Meili to emerge from seclusion." And while he was processing that, Sif looked Loki right in the eyes as she said, "I am his mother. We are Ullr's parents." A bit boldfaced, and rather abrupt, but after as much as he had been coming and going, little stopping in their lives, she was tired of awaiting.

"I..." Loki said, and it is all Sif can do _to not smile_ at the sight of the Wordsmith himself, rendered mute, caught unable to find what to say. "I am a father." _'I have been required elsewhere' indeed._

"Yes."

"You could have told me..." and to his credit, he does not finish the statement, and keeps accusation far from even the part he said.

"I could have. But when?" Sif asks him. "When you were hunting Thor to ground? When you were imprisoned? The times you were not here?"

 _You could have continued to hold it back from me, and you would have been in the right. That you spoke of this to me now...Means very much._ He dips his head in acknowledgement that she is right, a gesture just shy of hanging his head fully.

And he knows what he must do. _The only thing there is to do. The only thing I can do - that which I am good at._ And he looks back up at Sif, seeing her grace, savoring what he beholds, storing it up. "Know, Sif, that I always care. Always for you. Now for Ullr as well."

"Long suspected, now knowing," Sif said as Loki rises and walks around the table, and bends toward her.

Loki kisses her.

It is warmth and languidity and tender, caring and attentive. It is all the things she remembers and things which are new where he is concerned - _mortality? fear?_ \- and all wrapped in the pressure of Loki's lips. But it is a drink too short for one who has been through the arid places.

Sif looks into his face as he pulls himself slowly away not wanting to go. And sees him vanish.

She does not rush or hurry. She wipes her face and returns to Ullr.

**~~~**

* * *


	3. The weighty choice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How Ullr takes power.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An error resulted in the loss of the entire 3rd chapter, so I had to re-write the entire scenes (one of them and two pieces) from half-recalled memory; the rest of part 3 grows around them. While not as good as it was, I hope it is still enjoyable.

**When Loki did return to Asgard, a weighted bag draped over one shoulder, he was greatly shocked at what he saw.**

**All of Gladsheim, residence of the throne of Asgard, was in a snowdrift, whipping winter winds encircling that single building. Loki remembered Heimdall's words, and was comforted by them as he, Loki, continued to walk the length of the Bifrost.**

**When he was nearly at the Bifrost's end, he came across a figure whose identity was obscured by heavy robes draping over any recognizable features. "Who are you, friend?" Loki was asked.**

**"I am known to all, to mine friends and to mine enemies," Loki said. "I have never hidden my identity. Unlike, perhaps, yourself." _Odin?_ he wondered if it could truly be the Allfather, moving about as incognito as he did once in the stories of bygone centuries.**

**"Illusion is as easy as cloth for some."**

**On a hunch, Loki conjured up a bolt of a breeze, just enough to knock back the folds of fabric forming a hood on this figure. "Thor, I see," Loki said. "Then this should suffice: on that mountain in Midgard, you told me to listen to what you had to say, and I listened, even saying as much - but you had been struck from the mountain and into the woods, where you fought two of those who would become your avenging friends."**

**Thor's face broadened into a pleased grin. "It is good to see you again, brother."**

**Loki sighed. _So very much not in the mood to correct him yet again. I want only to empty this bag, greet Sif with all the warmth I can muster, and introduce myself to my son._ "Heimdall was curiously vague as to what became of Gladsheim."**

**With a single nod, Thor agreed: "It began shortly after you left Asgard last..."**

**~~~~~~~~~**

* * *

It had been one day, slightly less, since Loki's most recent disappearance.

The Allfather had taken Slepnir to mediate a three-Realm feud which had been sparked by outside assailants. While...

The Warriors Three had offered to help Sif demonstrate and teach some of the lesser-known combat moves to the more promising of the Einherjar on their outside training grounds. Meanwhile...

Thor stood at the barracks entrance, his heart and his mind still conflicted over whether or not he should enter - there was no bar to his entering, except for that within himself. _If I go within, Meili may turn angered, and mortals could be harmed by a fury I alone have deserved._

"My noble god the mighty Thunderer, is there any thing you require?" Thor was asked by a junior Einherjar officer - _Grendelsmit clan_ \- now at his elbow.

"I am uncertain of the path I am to take," Thor answered her.

"Should my words be of help, you, great Mjolnirstriking lord, are welcome to them."

"I would know your name in return, please," Thor asked her.

"I?"

"Please."

"I am Helga Eirikssheir Grendelsmit," she said.

"Then, Helga of the faithful and loyal Grendelsmit clan," Thor said, "then hear the words of the son of Jord. I am a brother to Meili who now is within your barracks. But I fear that child of our shared father harbors justified ill will to me."

She was silent for a bit. Finally, "Might I be intercessor betwixt god and god?" Helga offered up.

"Do not endanger yourself."

The young soldier gave in reply a look that, on Sif or Jarnsaxa would have meant 'who are you and what have you done with Thor?'

 _Has Midgard truly pacified me, quelling my fires further than I had thought?_ Thor thought with no small alarm. And noticed that Helga had not vanished, which allayed a small niggle of fear that it was an illusion of Loki's - _such comfort it would have given me, even with me deceived, to know we had at last returned to the relaxed tenor of our youth._..which turned his thought back to Meili again. "I have a further question," Thor said to Helga.

She lowered her head til her chin touched her breast, listening intently.

"What do you know of Meili and myself? Strip the honorifics and kennings from your telling, I ask this of you, a favor owed from I, if you speak boldly."

Helga's head jerked up, and the fear was visible in her eyes.

 _Think you that this is a test?_ Thor wondered, and considered it possible. Setting one hand gentle upon her shoulder, Thor told her that "Fear not and fear nothing. You have behaved with fealty and faithfulness. This favor is real, which I set my name and honor to, and may be used by yourself or any in your line, even to the day of Ragnarok. Ask what else you need of me, to know that I am serious, and I shall do it."

She nodded mutely, her face and body slowly recovering from the adrenaline rush of panic a moment ago. "You went into the wooded glens with Meili and a friend whose name is lost to time and tradition - different traditions give him different names - and during the four days the three of you were gone, Meili became a bear, and your friend died of a savage attack."

"And do the traditions..." Thor asked, "say who was responsible?"

"Some say it was Bor risen from the dead, and the change and the loss of a friend were the prices the three of you paid to stop the once-king. Some say a giantess was responsible for both the death and the transformation. My family's tradition says that Meili went mad and killed your friend, then changed."

"Thank you," Thor said, patting her shoulder. "Though present for all of it, I am sworn to silence on only part of it, and shall share it with you, Helga Eirikssheir. None of those traditions are correct as to who or what the guilty was. Suffice to say, we three were in the woods. Before that time in those woods, I used magic as freely as Loki has ever done; since Meili's transformation so complete, I have never used magic."

"Did you...?" Helga starts to ask, then remembers - permission or not - she's speaking with a god.

Thor looks kindly on her, understanding, and assures her that "I have said all that I may say. Even we gods may have our tongues stilled by oaths."

She nods, and asks to be excused; when he nods, she darts into the barracks.

*****

Once she is ready, Helga leads Thor down corridors to one of the barrack's internal exercise chambers, where Thor sees Meili presiding over Ullr and Einherjar youths going through a score of practice moves, though their implements are not wood or leather or even bone: _they are using spears and staffs and shields of pure dense ice._

Meili makes a great grizzly of a sound, and Thor knows he has been seen, as all eyes in the room turn to face him.

The ice weapons show no signs of melt or chipping, nor would they when Thor at last left this place.

Ullr looks to Meili, then to Thor. "My uncle Thor, terrible god of thunder and storm, may I help you?" Ullr asked, combining Asgardian and Einherjar forms of greeting-addressing.

"I wish you and your friends well in your training," Thor said. "And I would speak with Meili, whom I am brother of and you are nephew of."

As Ullr's staff grew bladed - as did the exercise implements of everyone else - Ullr, Anhild, and the other mortals looked to Meili, who gave barely a flick of that massive skull. They left the room in an orderly fashion, their implements now unbladed, leaving the two alone.

Thor and Meili look at one another, neither backing down, neither afraid of what they see in the eyes of the other one. "Have you come, brother, to slay me? Long have I wondered when you would get around to bringing down hammer or fist or another thing upon my skull and my spine to end me."

"No, Meili, I am not here to even fight you," Thor said. _I would prefer not to argue with you either, but that cannot be asked for._

"Are you here to club our nephew Ullr Sifson, then, brother?" Meili asked. "Snuffing out he whom is shortlived, a mercy perhaps."

 _I have no intention of killing Ullr, and not simply because of who either of his parents are,_ Thor knew. _But if this is the only way to open the doors to further reconciliation..._ and waited for the response to what he said next. "I have no intention of killing him."

"Even if he threatens your inheritance of the throne I may no longer ascend to?"

"If Ullr our nephew comes to the throne, I have no doubt he has earned it," Thor said. "If I may, I would join you in supporting his canidacy and ensuing reign."

"You think to buy me off with cooperation?" Meili raised a paw which could squash a large human torso, flexing claws capable of snipping an arm into appetizers. "Never can I forget."

Thor gave a slow nod. "Well I know, and never would I ask that you do. But for all our misdeeds, we are kin, and should rightly act as such," wincing inwardly as he thought of Loki. "Ullr deserves our full loyalty if he rules."

"Good. Then on this we are in agreement. It is meet that it is so."

_If we can agree on this, then perhaps we will in time be able to once again agree upon other matters. I know forgiveness is not for me; but I would repair what of my old friendships I can._

*****

"If we keep this up," said Anhild excitedly as she and Ullr and their friends went down the main barracks hallway, "we will be more than ready for the displays at the Festival Of Wars in a few weeks - we may even have a new fighting style to demonstrate there, thanks to your graciousness."

"I helped," Ullr said, knowing how his mother and uncle and Tyr would be among the Wars assembled as honored audience; in Asgard, 'War' was not just an action or an event, it was also a title. "Meili contributed to the new style more than I have."

"Such divine humility," one of their friends teased good-naturedly.

Anhild rolled her eyes, and Ullr near-smiled at that. But that brought another thought to mind: _When she comes of age... Even with my plight, I am entirely too young,_ Ullr knew. _Not certain whom to ask for aid in this regard: do I speak with my mother on this topic of some delicacy, or my uncle? Perhaps Fandral would be more able to be advisor in this - how to broach with Anhild the matter of my perhaps courting one of her descendants, a daughter or granddaughter perhaps._ Though there was one caveat built into it: _Assuming that I do not die in a year or ten, even without the taste of battle._

Tasting something in the air, "Hold," Ullr said, and without a touch or further prompting, Anhild and the others stopped exactly where they were.

"A sensory caution not dissimilar from my own," was said to them by a man walking down the hallway towards them, his pace steady and even.

"Shall we guess who you are?" Ullr asked, _as you have not announced yourself beyond that remark._

"Not since the final days of long-dead Baldur have I made kennings or heiti beyond that you are a young one and she is a young lady." He was not hiding in shadows - his brain did not process darkness and light, and he found no advantage in it anyway, not with how shadows tended to walls, edges, and corners.

"And you are...?" Ullr asked.

"You are the blind god," Anhild said, "the router of armies and the lord who ends wars."

"They still tell the nursery rhymes of me?" Hod asked. "I am more flattered than is perhaps wise. But that is immaterial to why I am here."

"You were summoned," Anhild said, knowing that from the rhymes.

"Yes. Send your friends to safety, young one; that is the responsible action," Hod advised him.

"It is," Ullr agreed. "Anhild, I ask you take the others to train."

Anhild said back, "Friends fight together against a foe."

"That is true as well," Hod said to her. "But think a step further. If you win against me, you will have the ire of the one who sent me. How far can you run? How swift can your retreat be?"

"I will see this ended, Anhild, one way or the other," Ullr assured her.

Glaring at Hod who looked back unblinking, she set one hand atop Ullr's shoulder. "You will be avenged, then," Anhild said, and shepherded the others away.

"Thinking highly of your chances?" Hod asked Ullr conversationally.

"Did I speak a lie?" was Ullr's reply.

"No."

"Is that not the important part?"

"One of them, not the only one," Hod said. "You may strike first."

Ullr dipped his head, not taking his eyes off his opponent. "You have magic," Ullr said, recognizing the feel of it. "Not like the Allfather's magic."

 _I have no need of light, not when I can feel the detailed motions of air - pressure waves, currents of gas and electricity, and other sensations._ "Just so," Hod said.

Forming a plan in his mind, Ullr drew a stone arrowhead from his belt - the sharpened stone, a gift from his mother before they left Utgard - and got a good grip upon it, and charged at Hod, leading the charge with that arrowhead.

Hod leaped over him and, in mid-air, drew a modified staff from a sheath against his spine. When air touched it, blades emerged from two sides of much of its length; a gift from a land neighbor to the Realms.

Barely had Hod's feet touched the floor, than the rear of Ullr's grip and the arrowhead shot an icicle back toward's Hod's back.

*****

"Very finely done, Rufusson," Sif said, knowing it was a safe bet, given that it was a common patronym in the Shieldbreaker clan - a clan who had been given their name after their role under her command in the rescue of Vali and Narvi; yet she in the centuries since, knew less well than she knew the Grendelsmits. So, when addressing a stranger on these exercise grounds, it was reasonable.

Rufus Rufusson bowed his head to her, risking that the toppled Fandral would not be so low as to knock his legs out from under him while so distracted. "I do my studies, good lady of Asgard."

Sif sighed. _Some things never change._

Volstagg was next to face her. "Not all your enemies will be lithe and swift," he said to those in attendance on the lessons. "But never think that makes them easy conquests." To Sif, "Shall we?"

She nodded, and they began the dance that was battle, swinging and striking and parrying and prying.

 _For so many centuries you have been ever good at persuading us to exercise among the Einherjar, Sif, legacy of your own training among them or not; usually it is your idea, but this is one of several occassions when it was not,_ Volstagg thought. In a tone deliberately chosen so it would not carry, he said to her, "Ullr is a fine boy. Pride is rightfully yours."

Sif waited for whatever he was going to say next, as it felt to her like a prelude.

"Had we not known better, we might think Thor truly the father."

In her very next move, Sif disarmed Volstagg. In the same tone he had used, albeit more cautionary, not threatening, "I would kindly press you to explain that, my friend," Sif said as she used her glaive to flick Volstagg's weapon up off the ground and back into his hands.

"Thor's mother is Jord," Volstagg said. Seeing Sif still eyeing him, "The giantess rumored to do sorcery."

"I know of her," Sif said; _Loki was long rumored to be Jord's other son, as opposed to being Odin's child by some other woman._ "And my brother is the giant Heimdall. And my grandfather is the giant Hymir whose private corps numbers eight hundred head strong."

"You asked for explanation, my friend Sif, and that is the whole of it. It is the logic some already use."

"Then fools they."

Volstagg nodded. "None of us argue that," he said. Then, interupting the training and practice -

"Is that not your to-be-knighted son?" Rufus asked Sif.

 _If Ullr lives long enough to graduate, I shall be pleased; if he lives longer and becomes part of the knighthood of Asgard, I will be even more pleased._ And then Sif turned her head and saw Ullr walking out from the barracks, his friends bracketing around him, and Einherjar soldiers following him.

And that was not all: Thor and Meili were passing through the crowd of soldiers who parted for the two of them, until they both stood directly behind the bracket around their nephew Ullr.

And Sif was not the only one who noticed what Ullr was half-carrying half-dragging: a large chunk of ice with a long handle.

Neither Sif nor the Warriors Three liked the looks of this. Thought Fandral, _The four of us have all sworn to have eternal loyalty to Asgard. We have also sworn eternal friendship and support to Thor and Loki. I fear to think what is passing through Sif's mind right now; I daresay her decision is even harder than ours._

What Thor was thinking was _Sending Hod was an advance too far, the sort of move I cannot stand for now. Once, perhaps, I would have stood aside and let it be done, back when I blindly sought the end of all Asgard's enemies (and the contents of that category decided by those in position to decide such things), thinking it would earn me praise and kudos from my king and queen. But that Meili's mother has done this..._ To the Warriors Three and any others in earshot, Thor said, "This is your decision. I shall think no less of you if you stand aside and not unsheath your weapons."

"While a kindly offer, my prince," Volstagg said, "we are most assuredly not that sort of friends." _We are not weak-fingered quailing creatures._

"As has been said," Fandral agreed, Hogun echoing him.

And within the day, with the support of not simply Asgardians, but of the royals Thor and Meili, the Einherjar soon stood, within and outside of Gladsheim, fully armed and prepared to stand fast against whatever was brought to bear against them; in their hands and belts were spears and axes and swords and shields and halberds and plates, crafted from ice, wood, leather, metals - but for ice, all traditional materials.

And thus thought Sif: _I had come to accept that the day might come that I would have to refuse a request by Odin Allfather. But never did I contemplate a coup or even the appearance of one, nor even the threat of marching on Gladsheim,_ and swallowed back the sick feeling which came from the shattering of her oath to Asgard, taking refuge in her loyalty to her child and her friends.

*****

None had stopped them or even slowed them, not even at the doors of Gladsheim itself, not with Thor and Meili among those in the lead.

And when they came to the throne room, their number spread to stand against all the walls.

Ullr stepped forwards, and, when he was before the stairs which rose up to the thrones, Ullr set down the large chunk of ice with the long handle. And he let go of it. "I trust you recognize your messenger, Allmother Frigga."

Calmly did she reply "I do. As he is now deceased -"

"Not dead." A spear of solid and purest ice had been thrust through ice-encased Hod, "The damage has cauterized by the spear itself, so cold is it," Ullr assured. "And to prevent shock or disruption, I froze the rest of him for now as well, like the frogs of winter ponds," at which, several listeners breathed sighs of relief.

And then he, Ullr, Sif's son, the swift-growing, Thor's nephew, did look up at where Frigga still sat on the royal throne. "You moved against me, Grandmother, Allmother," said Ullr. "I had been content to strive to be a Forseti for my generation, studying and learning and soaking in all I can. I used my learning to shape toys and tools with what I could do, that is not a thing I dispute doing. I kept from divine eyesight, content in the company of mortals; easily could I have lived the remainder of my days among the Einherjar. None bothered me, nor I anyone. I had no desire for the throne, nor a wish to upset any - not anymore than my mere breathing already has done, o I, Loki's son." He shook his head once, twice. "But you changed that yourself, Allmother. You ordered a move against I who am friend to Frigga's son."

"And now you wish the crown?" Frigga asked him, as she rose to her feet.

 _ **Someone** must defend it from you._ "Do not get up," Ullr told you, the floor growing a sheet glossing over it, spreading up the stairs until it trapped the soles of Frigga's footwear. "Sit, Grandmother," and he ascended the stairs, sitting next to her. The ice retreated from the stairs.

Ullr turned his head to look at her. "Now, your vision completed, I give you leave to depart from this throne room. I advise you not to return until the Allfather comes for his throne."

"Do you threaten my life?" Frigga asked as she stood.

He smiled, a gesture starker and more menacing than Loki's or Thor's had ever been. "Need I do so? I am willing to permit you stay in Asgard, Grandmother, provided you keep quiet and peaceable. For should you raise a stink, you will know the joys of life on Utgard, which so shaped me. Your decision, Allmother?"

"I will keep humble here in Asgard," Frigga said, walking down the stairs without losing any dignity in her bearing.

"Hod stays," Ullr said when it seemed to his eyes that Frigga was about to take the frozen lord with her. "One of my first lessons in military tradition, after all, is that every one who sits upon the throne, be they man or woman, does best when they have a tangible demonstration of their power, or at least a vivid reminder. Bor had three. Odin Allfather had two. We shall see how many I end with."

"Hod is a small thing, though his fame is great," Frigga replied. "Known throughout the Realms for routing all who he combats, Odin included, he could not be seen throughout Asgard if he remains in the throne room."

"You speak the truth," Ullr said. "Another vision you seek me to bring to completion? So be it - I ask the Warriors Three to escort Frigga Futureseer out of Gladsheim."

And no sooner had he said 'Gladsheim' than Sif could hear the familiar re-knitting of Ullr's bones. But this time, instead of accompanying growth, the sound accompanied columns and arches of ice reaching out from beside and behind him, to the walls and ceilings of this throne room.

**~~~~~~~~~**

* * *

When Loki next returns, doing so via the restored Bifrost Observatory, it is to such a sight that he nearly trips over himself. Gladsheim of Asgard is blanketed with snows while polar winds drift around and above the palace.

"We are invaded?" Loki asked, having caught himself.

"Not in the sense you mean," Heimdall said. "This is Ullr's doing." A pause. "In hindsight, your rule was preferable."

Rather than thank the Gatekeeper, knowing how the admission itself already rankled Heimdall, Loki did not make things worse. Shouldering his bag, Loki said "I will deal with it."

"How?"

Loki just smiled and walked down the Bridge.


	4. Out of the wilderness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki and Odin return to Asgard. The giving of gifts, and the unseating of Ullr.

**~~~**

When Loki next returns with a weighted bag draped over one shoulder, returning via the restored Bifrost Observatory, it is to such a sight that he nearly trips over himself. Gladsheim of Asgard is blanketed with snows while polar winds drift around and above the palace.

"We are invaded?" Loki asked, having caught himself.

"Not in the sense you mean," Heimdall said. "This is Ullr's doing." A pause. "In hindsight, your rule was preferable."

Rather than thank the Gatekeeper, knowing how the admission itself already rankled Heimdall, Loki did not make things worse. Shouldering his bag, Loki said "I will deal with it."

"How?"

Loki just smiled and walked down the Bridge. As he continued down its length, his mind processed what he was seeing: All of Gladsheim, residence of the throne of Asgard, was in a snowdrift, whipping winter winds encircling that single building. Loki remembered Heimdall's words, and was comforted by them as he, Loki, continued to walk the length of the Bifrost.

When he was nearly at the Bifrost's end, he came across a figure whose identity was obscured by heavy robes draping over any recognizable features. "Who are you, friend?" Loki was asked.

"I am known to all, to mine friends and to mine enemies," Loki said. "I have never hidden my identity. Unlike, perhaps, yourself." _Odin?_ he wondered if it could truly be the Allfather, moving about as incognito as he did once in the stories of bygone centuries.

"Illusion is as easy as cloth for some."

On a hunch, Loki conjured up a bolt of a breeze, just enough to knock back the folds of fabric forming a hood on this figure. "Thor, I see," Loki said. "Then this should suffice: on that mountain in Midgard, you told me to listen to what you had to say, and I listened, even saying as much - but you had been struck from the mountain and into the woods, where you fought two of those who would become your avenging friends."

Thor's face broadened into a pleased grin. "It is good to see you again, brother."

Loki sighed. _So very much not in the mood to correct him yet again. I want only to empty this bag, greet Sif with all the warmth I can muster, and introduce myself to my son._ "Heimdall was curiously vague as to what became of Gladsheim."

With a single nod, Thor agreed: "It began shortly after you left Asgard last..." And when Thor had finished telling of the fall of the Allmother, Thor said "I am loyal to Ullr, brother."

It was a bladed ridge that Asgard proverbially walked atop - he had heard Midgarders speak of the concept as 'walk a tightrope' - _Nearly all within Asgard swears loyalty to the throne; a safe enough choice, given how stable it tends to be, how long-lasting our monarchs are, with the exceptions of Bor and Ve. And client worlds and surrendered worlds, though they swear upon Asgard, would not budge themselves to interfere in the internal matters of Asgard. So once a changing of rulers happens, it is too late to change it._ Though, short of someone with Laufey's list of grievances, or Sutur's list of wished glories, Loki wasn't sure who would have taken the effort to depose Odin.

"What are you carrying there?" Thor asked, looking at the weighty-looking bag.

"Playthings. Cultic objects. Nothing which shall be missed for long," Loki said. "Speaking of, Sigyn is roaming Midgard again."

Thor stood up quick as you please. "She is?"

Loki smiled but didn't let that smile show - it was amusement over memory and records, after all: _Why is it that the mortals conflated Sif's loyalty into wivery, yet saw Thor moon-eyed over Sigyn, and thought she was_ my _wife?_ It was a small matter, but little things can chafe too; _But more important matters to deal with than preparing for the fallout of the Thunderer on the same planet as Sigyn._

What Loki said was, "I would like to be presented at court."

"We have both been presented at court, Loki," Thor says slowly and carefully, as though thinking his brother has been clubbed - _again_ \- whilst out gathering items. "Do you not remember? You set Jarnsaxa's hat on fire."

"I remember that moment of our youth, Thor," Loki said. "It is a Midgardian tradition I thought you would appreciate. Heimdall has informed me that Asgard is now ruled by Ullr, and that is a claim which you have confirmed. Thus to emulate your precious Earthlings -"

 _'Earthling'?_ Thor wondered.

"- I will be presenting myself to the court of King Ullr," Loki said.

"My friends of Earth neglected to mention that. Be that aside, come with me, brother," Thor said, leading Loki towards Gladsheim.

*****

Passing some Asgardian soldiers and sorceresses, Thor had a feeling he was not the only one who could read the feelings - facial expressions - they thought they hid better than they in fact did. "Is this...?" Thor asked, unsure how to ask it.

On a hunch of what Thor was trying to ask, Loki said "From what archives I have read over the course of my life, there tends to be varying levels of unease and nervousness for up to a year following a new ruler taking the throne in Asgard. Even Odin himself caused some distress."

Thor's relief that this was _normal_ , then ran up against startlement that "Father frightened people?"

Loki shrugged. "Queen Ve had died shortly beforehand." _How the humans ever thought Ve was a man's name, I have no idea._ By now, they had reached the doors of Gladsheim themselves, which were manned by members of the Einherjar instead of the Army forces who were normally stationed there as guardsmen.

"You seem familiar, hallowed lord," said one Einherjar.

"This is Loki, that is why," Thor said. "May we enter?" though the doors were opened for the two of them before Thor finished his question. _Still, niceties are always good to use and keep in practice._ Into Gladsheim they went, down the main hall and into the throne room. It all looked to Loki very much like what he remembered, though the primary colors had shifted a bit, and there were ice arches spiderwebbed across the top of the hall and the room.

The Warriors Three stood on the lower steps of the royal stairs. Meili lay on the floor beside the stairs, opposite the Three, eyes as alert as ever.

Loki didn't see Sif, but _I have no doubt she is somewhere keeping a watch over everything._

As Ullr rose from his throne and descended the royal stairs, he said "Thor, noble uncle of mine, I have considered your request and weighed it. I see merit in the idea, and approve your request to bring Jane Foster to Asgard; your flyting description of your _Midgarddoctor_ was persuasive."

Thor lowered his head respectfully. "I thank you, nephew, king."

Now Ullr looked at Loki and frowned. "You... I feel I know of you more than I recognize you."

"I would be insulted if you had not known of me," Loki said. "But do you hear of me from hushed voices or indignant ones?"

"Both, if you are who I suspect," Ullr said. "Both and others beside."

"Should I be flattered?"

"You tell it to me. I believe you are he who co-participated in the shattering of the Bifrost, a magician and adventurer, a once-king, a father of one, and a man who has not lost the instinct for running raids. Are you he?"

"I am he. I am Loki."

"Loki. Prince of Asgard. Father of the King and son of the Allfather," Ullr said. "I have no doubt my mother will speak with you when I finish here."

"Your mother gets what she wants," Loki agreed.

"Usually," Ullr said. 

"Unlike, however," Loki said, and adjusted how the bag sat from its dangling point on his shoulder.

"What is in the bag?" Volstagg asked.

"A gift," Loki said, "gestures from me to my son and king," and upended the bag, letting its contents spill out: the heads of the Other and his master and his master's master, of Doom and like-minded mortals, head-equivilents of now-dead beings such as Venom, and some heads who had not yet turned their attentions to this corner of the universe.

Everyone looked at the tumbled heads.

"Does this meet your majesty's approval?" Loki asked, not really humble.

"They do," Ullr said, crouching at the foot of the royal stairs, peering at the lifeless orbs of eyes. "You would, I hope, tell me the tales which each of these carried to their ends."

"I should like that very much," Loki said in full honesty.

"Are these not fine gifts?" Ullr asked the Warriors Three, who nodded, impressed by the number and variety of what Loki had taken down. "And you, my kin, what do you think?"

"Impressive," Thor agreed.

"One assumes so," Meili said, "though in my self-sheltering, I know naught of the nature and difficulty afforded by these once-things."

"Loki never does anything which is easy," Sif said, approaching where the others were standing. Looking more at Loki than the heads he had gathered, Sif said "Welcome back to Asgard, my lost prince."

"I am glad to have returned, Lady Sif, Shieldbreaker, fellow returnee to this noble land," Loki said, _though I suspect 'King-bearer' would still be a sore point, true though it is._

Smiling, Sif said, "I understand you have been to Midgard several times in the past year now?"

"I have."

"And you found nothing more portable than this many fleshed skulls?"

"I felt stuffed bears would be an exercise in poor taste," Loki said. _To put it mildly._

"I too approve of the gift of heads," said Odin, stepping forward while removing some of what he had disguised himself in, though keeping the Einherjar uniform on. "A fine offering to one's king."

 _So I was correct in my hunch that he was incognito,_ Loki thought, _simply incorrect as to his disguise._

"Would you care for it, Grandfather?" Ullr asked bluntly.

Odin said, "My wish is immaterial. They were gathered for you, Lord Ullr, King Ullr."

"Lord, perhaps. King, no. As I spoke to the Allmother - a conversation I have no doubt you heard - I am holding the throne until your return. As you have returned, I need not hold it further," and punctuated that with kneeling before Odin: one knee fully upon the floor, the other knee only a finger's thickness from touching the floor.

The Einherjar echoed his movements, his gesture of fealty.

"I accept," Odin said. "Stand."

Ullr and the Einherjar did so.

"I will draw back the ice and snows from around Gladsheim into myself," Ullr said.

"I would tell you no, and do it myself," Odin said, "but I will make you an offer, a friendly wager: a bit of sparring between the two of us, Ullr and Odin, and the winner does away with the snows."

"I accept your offer of wager, Allfather."

In answer to that, Odin conjured an ash staff from the air, and tossed it to Ullr, then conjured an identical ash staff for himself.

Odin had the advantages of strength and reach, experience, and muscle memory stretching back to his crucifixion. As for Ullr...while he had not reached the heady heights of Forseti and Odin, Ullr had a great deal crammed into his skull - all his mother knew, and more besides; he also had his father's nimbleness and mother's swift reaction times.

In the hands of anyone of Odin's stature, the ash could be a club, a flat-tipped spear, a death blow. In Odin's hands specifically, it was a shield and a probe.

In Uller's hands, the ash was feint and decoy, a distraction a moment before the true thrust of the attack, more taser than lightning bolt.

"Did you know your father could move that fast?" Sif whispered to Thor.

Thor shook his head, unable to take his eyes off the - _Stark would call it ballet, Romanova might say it a dance_ \- before them. And saw it end suddenly.

Odin held his ash with its end light against Ullr's forehead, while Uller's ash pressed light against Odin's thigh. "A joint effort, then," Odin declared, and they both drew back their staffs before Odin conjured the ash back to nothingness.

Grandfather and Grandson drew the snow and ice into themselves, drawing strength and power from it, but drew more satisfaction at the accomplishment.

"Now," Odin said, "what had been your intent in approving the coming here of your uncle's mortal interest?"

"I know not if the interest will be mortal, but of the human I had thought only to ensure she spends her time here. Thus what she learns of Asgard and the people thereof, she cannot relay - deliberately or otherwise - to any on Midgard or elsewhere," as he handed Odin back the spear of kingship which had been Odin's for so long that most everyone had thought it was purely Odin's.

Odin nodded approval. And to Thor, Odin said "Worry not, Thor; even when I sit once more upon my throne, my first actions cannot be to undo the last actions of my predecessor." _Be that predecessor Ullr or Ve._

The Warriors Three were not the only ones in the room who recognized the reference. Sif shook her head. Loki grinned.

Odin stood where he was and, making his spear resound against the floor, did next decree "Bound to my words, there shall be full amnesty of the Einherjar, which does mean that none may move or think to move against them for their role in recent events; of any considering it, those who move against them, thusly move against me. In addition, step forwards," Odin said to Ullr's closest friends and their parents, his de facto lieutenants of late, "and I do change your clan - for now you are united in one clan: you are _Ullrsax_ s, in honor of your strengths and flexibility."

 _Ullr's Knife,_ Sif knew, and felt pride at both the recognition and the renaming. _Grendel was not always the happiest about how his supporters had been clan-named, but it never slowed him down. I miss him._

"Ullr," Odin said, summoning him forward.

Ullr obeyed.

"You defended yourself, and in so doing, you threatened my wife and my friends." _Those I call friends._ "This cannot go unanswered. And neither can Asgard afford to be without your talents when Ragnarok arrives. Thus I trust you shall entomb yourself like the winter pond frogs, awaking at intervals - whence you shall sit upon the throne for a week each time - before you return to the pond for another sleep. I shall not elongate the life you have in your waking hours. I have no reason to lock you within, and less reason to permit another to do so; your slumber shall be under my protection, and any who may succeed me - should that happen - shall swear to the same." _And while you sit upon the throne, I shall take a vacation, much-needed. I do not care to collapse again._

Ullr lowered his head til his chin touched his chest. "Thy will be done, Allfather."

 _It shall. Which brings us to..._ "Thor," Odin said. "Will you succeed myself or Ullr?"

"I will not unseat either of you," Thor said.

 _Then who will/would you unseat?_ "That was not my question to you."

"It is not my question to answer. Not my decision to make."

"Then we shall discuss it at a later time. You shall have an answer for me," Odin said.

Thor nodded.

"Find where you would prefer to slumber," Odin advised Ullr, "and we shall proceed accordingly there after."

Ullr nodded, and departed. _Goodbyes and til-we-meet-laters, will be once I find my place of rest._

Walking up to the royal stairs and up those to his throne, Odin dismissed everyone; many returned to their barracks or to the dining hall.

Thor, the Warriors Three, and most of all Sif came over to stand by Loki.

"Welcome back, Loki," Fandral said, slapping his arm good-naturedly.

"More durable than Baldur," Hogun quipped, referring to the legendary invincibility of the long-dead lord.

"And you my friends, are my Hod," Loki answered just as good-naturedly. _It is nice to be missed. And if I am like Hod in this..._ and he cast a glance over at Sif. _Then in this comparison, you are my Nanna, my heart, my love, the cradle of my soul._

"You owe me a meal," Sif said dryly.

"Oh I do?" Loki asked, unable to not grin at that.

"You do," she said, then wrapped an arm around where his shoulders met his neck, and pulled him close. Her lips by his ear, Sif informed Loki that "Heimdall informed me of who you met with on Midgard. Have you informed your brother that Angrboda is helping Sigyn?"

 _You're very calm, given what your cousins can do._ "Not as yet," Loki said just as softly.

Drawing back her head, Sif said to Loki's face, "Anyway, tis an inspired choice, I'm sure, to give your son dead things."

"I may be a poor parent," Loki said. "But what trickster does not seek to destroy the deepest darkest things of the cosmos?"

"That makes you a good parent," Sif said. "On that, you and the Einherjar are very much in agreement."

Loki made a look of mock hurt on his face. "Truly? However shall I get by?"

"I can think of a few things," Sif said, a smile on her lips.

**Author's Note:**

>  _Deyr fé,_ | Cattle die,  
>  _deyja frændr,_ | kinsmen die,  
>  _deyr sjálfr et sama;_ | you yourself die;  
>  _ek veit einn,_ | I know one thing  
>  _at aldri deyr:_ | which never dies:  
>  _dómr um dauðan hvern._ | the fate of the honored dead .


End file.
